The Other Side
by Sophia Hawkins
Summary: AU oneshot for the season 5 finale "Homecoming". Alvin Olinsky was stabbed in prison, but what really happened afterwards?


The Other Side

 _"Al...Al?"_

Alvin Olinsky was late getting to the hospital. He walked through the automatic doors and looked around for his crew from the 21st and saw several of them seated around the waiting room. But Voight wasn't with them. Probably found the doctor and was talking to him. Alvin looked around and saw Trudy, Jay, Upton, Burgess, Ruzek, Antonio, Atwater, all of them huddled in a grim silence, waiting for an update. None of them even looked up at him, and he decided to go straight to the source and find Hank and find out what was going on.

He went down one corridor, and another, passed by nurses, orderlies, doctors, none of whom even acknowledged his presence, but it didn't really matter. But where the hell was Hank?

Alvin ducked down one corner, then another, no, no, no, no, wait, he backed up. Yes, it was Voight, almost unrecognizable because he was out of his regular clothes and actually dressed up in a white shirt and black suit. He was standing right outside the OR doors waiting.

"Hey Hank," Al called as he headed down the hall to meet him, trying to lighten the mood, "what's the occasion?"

Hank didn't hear him. At that moment the doors swung open and a doctor walked out and Voight started talking to him. Well, at least now they were going to get somewhere. For that matter, Olinsky hated to admit it, but he couldn't even figure out _who_ everybody was here to see. He came up behind Hank just in time to hear the doctor say, "He didn't make it, I'm sorry."

Voight just stood there as the doctor walked off, his face frozen in total disbelief. Alvin clapped a hand on his shoulder and asked, "Who was it, Hank?"

Voight didn't answer, and just looked down the corridor.

"Hank," Alvin said again, "who didn't make it?"

Voight turned back and looked at the OR doors. Olinsky did a mental head count of everybody in the waiting room, everybody had been accounted for there, so it wasn't anybody from Intelligence, thank God. Who then? A witness? A friend of somebody out there?

"It wasn't Woods, was it?" Alvin asked. And then he wondered why he asked that. Voight had been planning some way to take Woods down as retaliation for trying to dig up dirt on Hank to remove him from the 21st. But there wasn't anything going on, that he could think of anyway, that would put Denny Woods' life in any imminent danger.

Voight turned and headed down the corridor, Alvin went with him in hopes of finding out what was going on. Hank returned to the waiting room, and everybody stood up for the news. He didn't answer, not verbally, instead he just gave a small shake of his head, and the message was received. Antonio turned and stormed off, Atwater turned and looked away, Kim doubled over, Trudy dropped right back in her chair, a look of mourning on her face. Voight went over and hugged Trudy. Alvin knew he wouldn't be getting any answers out of anybody here about what was going on, so decided to go back and see if he could get a look at the body before they took it down to the morgue.

He went back towards the OR and saw two people in scrubs wheeling out a body on a gurney, the sheet brought up over its head.

"Hey, can you guys stop a minute?" Alvin asked. But they walked right past him as if they hadn't heard him. Gee, the hospital was getting to be more and more like his home every day.

"Okay, you guys mind if I come with you? No? Alright," Alvin turned and followed them over to the elevator.

"So I guess it's true what they say about elevators, eh?" Olinsky asked the men. "Just look straight ahead and pretend not to notice anyone riding with you, huh?"

Nothing.

"How'd he die anyway?" Alvin asked. "You can say that much anyway, right?"

Nothing.

"Boy you guys must be a lot of fun to work with," Al said.

The elevator reached the basement and the men wheeled the gurney out, Alvin followed right behind them, down the hall, straight to the morgue. The two men in scrubs talked to somebody else in the room, but Alvin couldn't really make out what they were saying. He noticed that none of them were looking at him and decided to take advantage of it and get a look at the body to know who everybody was so torn up about.

He went over to the gurney, grabbed the sheet with one hand, and drew it back.

Alvin Olinsky was looking down at himself on the gurney.

All of a sudden he was able to hear what the men in the corner were saying.

"Stabbed by another inmate in prison, too much blood loss before they got him here, there wasn't anything we could do."

* * *

 _"Alvin_? _Alvin, wake up."_

Olinsky murmured something incoherent.

"Alvin, wake up," Hank Voight tried again.

Olinsky weakly raised an arm and seemed to be trying to push something away from him, but didn't open his eyes.

"Come on, Al, talk to me," Voight said. "Al? Al!" He snapped his fingers right by Olinsky's ear, trying to get a reaction.

Alvin groaned softly and murmured, "Go away, leave me alone, I'm dead."

"Alvin, wake up, you're having a nightmare."

His partner and friend of 20 years tried turning over on his side but quickly found out that wasn't happening, so turned over on his back again in the hospital bed. Voight pressed a firm hand on Alvin's shoulder and shook him.

"Come on, Al, wake up."

"Leave me alone, I'm dead," Olinsky said again as he tried turning on his other side.

"You are _not_ dead," Voight told him. "Will you _wake up_? I'm not having this conversation with a corpse, now come on, open your eyes."

Olinsky slowly forced his eyes open and quickly squinted them all but shut at the bright overhead lights in the hospital room.

"Go away, Hank, I told you I'm dead."

"And I told you you're not," Voight replied without missing a beat. "Al...Alvin."

"Wha?"

"Look at me!"

Olinsky felt a thumb pressing on his eyelid and forced it up, he saw Voight standing over him.

"I was stabbed," Alvin said uncertainly.

"Yes you were," Voight told him. "And you were in surgery for a long time. But the doctors got you fixed up, and you're going to be fine."

Hank slipped a hand under Olinsky's head and tilted it up to see him better. He smiled at his friend and told him, "You're not getting away from me that easily, Al."

Al weakly laughed and replied, "It wasn't my idea."

Hank leaned down and pressed his forehead against Al's momentarily, then he stood up again and told him, "You scared the hell out of me."

Olinsky coughed, which had all his stitches feeling like they were going to rip out, and he told Voight, "That wasn't the plan either."

Voight laughed, then he leaned down again and kissed Al on the top of his head.

"Hey now," Al weakly said, "don't start getting weird on me."

Voight sat down beside his bed and Alvin asked him, "Find out who did it?"

Hank nodded. "Yeah, we got the bastard, don't worry about that."

"Who was it?"

"It was a hit ordered by the brother of a guy you busted years ago and sent to prison."

"So Woods wasn't behind this?" Alvin asked.

Voight shook his head.

"Huh, go figure."

"And now that you're out of prison, we're going to go after Woods and _take him down_ ," Voight told him.

Al was starting to feel lightheaded again, he asked Voight, "What about Bingham?"

"I'll take care of that," Hank told him. "I've got you out, I'm not letting them put you back in."

Voight reached over the bed rail and hugged Olinsky.

"You're my best friend," Voight told him. "I don't know how this happened, Al, but I swear to you, I'll find a way to fix it."

Alvin didn't have any response to that, he was tired and just wanted to go back to sleep.

The otherwise silence of his hospital room was interrupted by a buzzing sound. Voight took his phone out and answered. "Yeah? ...What?"

Olinsky looked over and saw a confused expression on Voight's face. He disconnected the call, and just stood there in a stupor. Not entirely different from how he'd looked in the dream after the doctor came out.

"What is it?" Olinsky asked.

"I'm sorry, Al, I gotta get out of here," Voight told him as he pocketed his phone. "I'm gonna have Trudy come stay with you while I'm gone."

"Hank, what's wrong?"

Voight looked at Al as he put on his jacket. "Denny Woods is dead. His daughter Brianna just shot him."

* * *

Voight pulled his car up outside Woods' house. There were already several police cars around and an ambulance parked at the curb that didn't appear to be in any hurry to leave.

"What happened?" he asked one of the patrolmen on the scene.

"Neighbor heard the gunshots and called us, found her inside in hysterics."

"She say anything?"

"Nothing we could understand. Like I said, she's hysterical."

"Alright, let me take a crack at her before you take her down," Voight said as he headed up to the porch, "I know this girl, if she'll talk to anyone, it'll be me."

"You got it."

Voight entered the house and called to the patrolmen inside to clear out for a moment. They knew better than to argue with Voight so they did as he said and left. He looked around the house, all the lights were on, he looked in the living room and saw blood on the floor along with an outline for a body.

"Brianna?" he called out.

He heard the girl's muffled cries from another room on the first floor. He followed them to the kitchen, and to the downstairs bathroom at the back.

"Brianna, it's Hank Voight, either you come out, or I'm coming in," he said through the closed door.

He heard the bolt turn, and saw Denny's daughter slowly step out. Her appearance was disheveled and it was obvious she'd been crying for some time. Voight put his arms around her and held her close.

"What happened, Brianna?" he asked soothingly, as if he were her father instead of the man in the back of the ambulance outside.

The young woman pulled away from him and covered the bottom half of her face with her hand as she thought back to what happened earlier that night.

"I was on a date," she started shakily, "I came home early...he didn't hear me come in. I heard him talking to somebody, I thought he had company. I came in...he was on the phone, he had his back to me. I heard him talking...he was laughing...saying he was going to ruin you." She started crying again, "He admitted to everything."

"What do you mean?" Voight asked, "Admitted to what?"

"Detective Olinsky..." Brianna sucked in a choked breath, "he set the whole thing up."

"Brianna, what're you saying?"

She looked at him with tear filled eyes that started to run over as she confessed, "He framed Detective Olinsky. He said since he couldn't find anything on _you_ , he was going to ruin you by going through your partner instead. He had somebody plant DNA on that man's body they dug up, so it would look like Olinsky did it...thought by putting him in prison, it would force you to confess to something to get Olinsky out. He said Olinsky being stabbed tonight was a... _happy accident_...because if he died, then you'd have nothing left to live for and would confess anyway."

Voight stood there and looked at Brianna, his face giving away nothing as she explained all this.

She shook her head, "I couldn't believe it...I've known my dad my whole life...I didn't think..." she dropped her head to her chest and sobbed, "How could he do such a thing?"

"Brianna...what did you do?"

"I just froze...I stood there, waiting for him to turn around, but he didn't. I was s _o_ _mad_! I couldn't think...I went upstairs...and instead of going to my room, I went over to his room...he kept his gun on the nightstand...I picked it up." She choked on another sob as she recalled, "I was so angry, he had to pay for what he'd done...I came back down...and he was off the phone. I asked him how he could do something like that to an innocent man...and the next thing I knew...I shot him...and I kept shooting him until the gun was empty...I don't know what happened after that. Next thing I knew, the cops were here."

Voight took the young woman in his arms again and tried to comfort her.

"Listen to me, Brianna, listen very carefully," he told her. "Have you told any of this to the other cops?"

"I tried!" she wailed, "I tried but I couldn't talk."

"Okay, listen to me, you don't tell any of them anything," Voight said. "You tell them you want a lawyer, and you don't talk to anybody until you get one. I'll make sure you get a good one, don't worry about that."

"I don't understand!" she cried, "I did it..." her bottom lip and in fact her whole chin quivered as she told him, "I...killed my father."

"Shhh!" Voight told her. "You don't tell anybody that. This is all a lot more complicated than you know, Brianna. The best thing you can do is not say a word to anybody until you get a lawyer, no matter what anybody says, you got that?"

"I don't know."

"Brianna, I'm asking you to trust me, I know what's going to happen next, you'll be better off if you keep quiet, understand?"

She shook her head but told him tearfully, "Okay..."

Voight heard the front door open. He ran his fingers along Brianna's arm, found a particularly fleshy part of her forearm, and gave it a sharp pinch, which drew a loud and pained cry from her, before she collapsed against him sobbing again.

Hank saw the other cops enter the house and he shook his head and told them, "No good, she's too upset. She could be going into shock, get her to Chicago Med and have her looked over before you take her down to the station."

"Got it, sergeant," a female patrolman said as she escorted Brianna out of the kitchen.

"Find the gun?" he asked.

"Right in the living room by the body. Shouldn't be any problem getting prints off of it."

Voight just nodded his head.

* * *

It was morning before Voight returned to the hospital. Trudy met him in the hallway and announced she was going home to get some rest, and to let her know when there was any update on the case. Voight entered Olinsky's hospital room and laughed. Alvin was sitting up in his bed, still dressed in the hospital's dress code paper gown, but sometime during the night he'd had somebody stop by his place because he was wearing his black cap as well.

"What're you still doing in bed?" Voight asked.

Olinsky kept his eyes on the TV up on the wall and answered nonchalantly, "I'm waiting on room service, which do you want, the plastic scrambled eggs or the rubber cement lime Jello?"

Voight went over and shut off the TV.

"How's Brianna?" Alvin asked, a lot more alert now than he'd been last night.

Voight grumbled, and answered, "That's going to take some time to determine. Right now, she's got a lawyer, one of the best in all Chicago..."

"You wouldn't have it any other way of course," Olinsky said.

"Of course," Voight responded. "She's not being charged as of yet, extreme emotional distress aside, we're waiting for the state's attorney to pore over everything and get back to us on his decision."

"If he's smart he won't do it," Olinsky said.

"I already pointed that out," Voight told him. "Brianna's prints are on the gun, GSR on her hand, but the prints on the bullets, those are Denny's, so it corroborates her story of just picking up the gun and firing. They're checking the records of who Denny was talking to to find out who this second party is who was in on the conspiracy, and once they get the guy who was on the other end of the phone, you'll be cleared."

"Talk about a lucky break," Alvin said.

"Make yourself presentable, you've got a visitor," Hank said.

"What visitor?"

Voight went over and opened the door, Brianna Woods stepped in.

Al sat up straighter in his bed and looked at her, surprised.

"Brianna."

The young woman marched over to Al's bed and told him, her voice near breaking, "Detective Olinsky, I am so sorry, I swear I didn't know what my dad was doing."

Al reached over and put his arm around her, "Hey, it's alright, it's not your fault."

She rested her head on his shoulder and cried. "He was my father...how could I not know what he was really like?"

Voight came up behind her and told her, "Brianna, your father loved you very much, but he had a lot of problems, he always made sure you never saw what those problems were. None of this is on you, but _because_ of you, the truth is finally going to come out."

She turned and looked at Voight and asked, "But what's going to happen now?"

* * *

"State's attorney isn't going to indict Brianna for her dad's death," Voight told Olinsky as he finally got discharged from Chicago Med. "Between you and me, theoretically, he can make the case...after all she didn't shoot him in defense of herself or a third party, but put that little girl in front of a jury and listen to her story, who's gonna convict?"

"Lucky break for her," Olinsky said. "I figured they'd at least try for second degree manslaughter, give her probation. They ever find out who he was talking to?"

"Yeah, some low man on the totem pole in the Ivory Towers, thought he'd be able to come in on this case and make a name for himself by burying me," Voight answered. "But you haven't heard the best news yet."

"What's that?"

"Oh, caught a lucky break, Ruzek and Atwater busted these two punks the other day, and when they were down in the cage, they get talkative and confess to murdering Bingham and burying him in that lot. Something about a drug buy gone wrong."

Olinsky looked at him. "How'd that happen?"

Voight shrugged nonchalantly. "Damnedest thing, some time before the murder, one of them apparently was able to gain access to the evidence locker, and remove the gun I took off a robbery suspect, which was later found out to be the murder weapon."

"Huh...lot of funny stuff goes on in that evidence room," Alvin said with a straight face.

"You know it," Voight replied.

As they got in Voight's car, Alvin told him, "Doctors said it'll be a few weeks before I'm cleared to come back to work."

"We'll be ready for you," Hank said. "I'm sorry about everything that happened, Al."

Olinsky shrugged as they pulled out of the hospital parking lot. "When they were looking to arrest me, I started thinking...my daughter's dead, my wife hates my guts...exactly what am I hanging on for?"

Hank turned and looked at him.

"Same things started going through my mind when that son of a bitch stabbed me," Alvin told him. "Seemed very easy to just give up and die. Now you said that the drugs from the surgery were making me hallucinate, but I think it had to have been some kind of out of body experience, I'm looking around at everyone from Intelligence, they're not seeing me...but they're there, and I'm there, and I'm right where I need to be. I'm where I belong. This job doesn't make it easy to sleep at night, but it's all I got, it, and the people I work with...and that's something worth hanging on for."

Voight maintained his usual 'stone' face with no readable emotions, but Alvin could see it all in his eyes as he responded, "I'm glad to hear it."

"So how was Woods' funeral?" Olinsky asked.

Voight grinned the type of grin he usually reserved for the few seconds before he bashed a perp's head in, and asked, "What makes you think I went to his funeral?"

"Because I know you," Alvin said.

Voight paused, then answered, "It was nice, better than he deserved."

"Was Brianna there?"

"Yeah. Poor kid. The whole thing's been hard as hell on her."

"Yeah, too bad it takes someone else's misfortune to help us out," Alvin said.

Voight nodded. "Unfortunately, sometimes that's just life."

"Yep," Olinsky looked out the window at the sun starting to shine over the city. "And when it's all said and done, life is still pretty good."

"Amen," Voight agreed.


End file.
